Keir has already fixed it – but not for you or me
JVL Introduction
Perspectives on the General Election (7)
The desperation to be rid of the Tories does not mean that Labour can be let off the hook, especially because of the way that the Labour Leader(ship) has behaved and especially in relation to selection of candidates. In this hard hitting article, the Editor of Tribune outlines how deep the purge has been and how great is the control by one faction and it would also seem that these are not necessarily the “high quality” candidates that Starmer claims.
The Broad Church, already a much narrower beast after Blair’s period in control, has become dramatically straitened – and even strait jacketed. Following the bad publicity that surrounding Diane Abbott’s treatment, the right wing dominated National Executive Committee had no choice but to finally approve her candidature. Beyond that, however, it chose to impose candidates in their own image much to the consternation of many local Party members, some of whom have resigned.
Even the self declared right wing Labour pundit Michael Crick has been critical of Starmer’s purges since at least 2022 and has written more recently here noting that in 2021 Starmer “…once again insisted that Labour would embrace greater transparency when it came to parliamentary selections. There would, he assured me, be no parachuting in of candidates … We even discussed the dangers of finding seats for some of his closest advisers — people who might make excellent cabinet ministers but could struggle to win over a local Labour Party.” It appears that no such scruples remain.
LL
This article was originally published by Tribune on Tue 4 Jun 2024. Read the original here.
Keir'll Fix It
In the coming weeks, expect to hear Keir Starmer’s mantra of ‘country first, party second’ on loop. But what the naked, overt corruption evident in Labour’s selection process shows is that in reality, it is faction first, second, and third.
Keir Starmer has overseen the corruption of Labour’s candidate selections
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Starmer Labour’s fraudulent soundbite ‘country first, party second’ is constructed to obscure a fundamental violation of democracy. Obviously, the fact that Starmer and his Blairite entryist neoliberal cabal are doing exactly the opposite of what the Labour Party’s purpose has been for over 100 years, makes a mockery of the basic process of people coming together to even form their own Parties.
Neoliberals usual obscure this violation of democracy, by claiming to be performing a broader service to the electorate and the executive – they don’t clarify what the latter ‘executive’ means though?
In any case this is a lie because whenever Labour has succumbed to neoliberal capture the voter turnout numbers collapse – apparently stratefically deliberately. So clearly there is no wider electorate being served by this Party betrayal. Also, socio-economic inequality massively widens, when neoliberals seize power in this way. So, it is only an economic elite that is being served.
It is no secret that when neoliberals penetrate and seize control of progressive leftist Parties globally, they practice Party suppression and the Voter Suppression advocated by 1970s Republican strategist Paul Weyrich. As neoliberals are largely sociologically unrepresentative, their plan is to steal elections with just a handful of votes. The reality of what they are practicing needs to be revealed at every opportunity and their anti-democratic practices confronted with more adversarial participation. See link –
“Starmer’s Road to Voter and Labour Party Suppression”
https://labourheartlands.com/starmers-road-to-voter-and-labour-party-suppression/
Has anybody nominated Jamie Driscoll for North Durham yet? I reckon he’d win by a landslide
‘Country first, party second’ was Ramsey MacDonald’s mantra; ‘Fiscal discipline, sound money’ was Philip Snowden’s. Both were expelled from the Labour Party and went on to form National Labour. Starmer and Reeves have led a constitutional coup to take control of Labour and to create a National Labour Party.
This is quite frightening and is completely authoritarian. All the ‘helicopter’ candidates, should have no help from their respective CLP’s, after all they have not been selected by the people who count. Let’s see how they fair with no one door knocking or leaflet delivering. Perhaps the CLP’s in the respective constituencies could encourage the deposed candidate to enter as an independent.
Karl Hansen makes it startlingly clear just how easy it has become for the Starmer faction to parachute its selected candidates on top of local Labour Party CLP`s. The ease of convenience of dropping suggestions against existing MP’s who do not fit their ideology, about previous “misconduct” or alleged “inappropriate” posting on “social media” is timed to perfection. The Party has honed, a perfectly well-oiled group of staffers to support its authoritarian “leadership” and extinguish what ever is left of “democracy” in the party.
With many new Labour MPs in a predicted “landslide” the Party will become uncontrollable and unmanageable. Without the members and supporters in the constituencies, the Party will become baseless and rely on media to get its message across. Those authoritarian apparatchiks, charlatans and fellow – travellers are guilty of deliberately undermining the origins and history of the Labour Party and the Labour movement.
Those conniving, deceptive, spiteful, ideologically-driven personalities won’t stop once all socialists have been expelled or demoralised. Once a thief, always a thief. It’s in their DNA. Like giving matches to a political arsonist, Starmer has played with fire and likely to suffer the same fate from those whom he has trusted to get him this far. His day will come, and hopefully sooner than he thinks.
I will just watch as this shit-show unfolds. Labour will have a short honeymoon – with a majority far less than it could have achieved had it been united, and then I will watch it squirm. I think we now need to create a broad alternative…..
Favouritism, factionalism and corruption within changed for the worse Labour is evident everywhere. It is an obvious fact, which is relentlessly covered over by the corrupt establishment mass media. What a way for us to be ruled.
Hear hear – thank you for reinforcing me in my decision to leave the Labour Party. If I had joined a different CLP, or even had lived in a different ward of the same CLP, I would probably have left some time ago, but the comrades I found in my CLP who are still ‘staying and fighting’ were and are rather special. Now, however, we have an independent Socialist standing in Tottenham and I want to support her. This difficult decision has been made easier because of what has happened in Chingford and Woodford Green, and by my outrage at the imposition of the egregious Luke Akehurst on Laura Pidcock’s former constituency. I am off to leaflet for Nandita Lal.